Summary

The headframe over Skip Shaft at Levant mine is a small timber structure which was built by the Geevor Mining company in the 1960s.

Description

The headframe over Skip Shaft at Levant mine survives as a small timber structure which was built by Geevor Mine in the 1960s. The headframe is associated with an electric winding engine in a nearby concrete building.
The headframe takes the form of a wooden tower set directly over the winding shaft and is braced by a pair of extended legs called boomstays. The entire frame is braced and triangulated for strength and is set on elongated bearers which are bolted down to a levelled platform surrounding the shaft opening. The headframe is unusually clad in plywood sheeting, the result of the shaft being utilised in later years as part of the Geevor underground ventilation control system. The winding wheel, cage and shaft furniture all survive.

History

The headframe is situated within the core of Levant Mine which is often described as one of the great tin and copper mines of Cornwall. The mine is certainly famous for extending for over a mile beneath the Atlantic Ocean, for the 1919 man-engine disaster which claimed 31 lives and for being Cornwall's last operational copper mine. Early photographs illustrate the headframe which existed above this shaft before the present one was erected by Geevor Mine during the 1960's, when that mine expanded to work the area previously mined by Levant. The headframe formed the upper part of a cage system in which miners were carried to and from the lower levels.

Reasons for Listing

The headframe at Skips Shaft, Geevor Mine is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Historic interest: it is a well preserved and intact headframe retaining its machinery through which its industrial function is illustrated, and is sited within the internationally significant Conish mining landscape
Rarity: it is the best preserved example and one of only three surviving timber headframes remaining in Cornwall, which were once a common feature of the mining landscape
Group value: it has strong group value with the associated Levant Engine Houses, listed at Grade II

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26675501

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair